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Pound Hits New 4-Month Lows As PM May Is Pressured to Resign

The British pound today hit new 4-month lows against the US dollar as U.K. leaders criticized Theresa May‘s new proposed Brexit deal, which she outlined yesterday. The GBP/USD currency pair hit new lows as news reports indicated that multiple factions within the Conservative Party were planning to force the Prime Minister to resign.

The GBP/USD currency pair today fell from an opening high of 1.2718 in the Asian session to a low of 1.2624 in the late London session.

The currency pair opened today’s session trading sideways before heading lower in the early European session. The pair dropped as markets remained convinced that the latest Brexit deal would be voted down by the House of Commons. The fact that she made the passage of the deal a precondition for the vote on a second referendum also did not help. The release of the disappointing consumer price index report for March also contributed to the decline. According to the Office for National Statistics, the headline CPI rose 0.6% in March, while the annual print came in at 2.1%; both prints missed expectations by 0.1%. The producer price index also missed expectations, while the retail price index came in above analysts’ estimates.

The weak demand for the greenback as tracked by the US Dollar Index could not reverse the pair’s losses, which were only limited by the oversold technical conditions.

The currency pair’s short-term performance is likely to be affected by the release of the FOMC minutes at 18:00 GMT.

The GBP/USD currency pair was trading at 1.2643 as at 14:39 GMT having fallen from a high of 1.2718. The GBP/JPY currency pair was trading at 139.49 having dropped from a high of 140.71.